


Bloodlines

by aretia



Series: Bloodlines [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M, Season/Series 02, Ulaz is part Altean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2018-12-02 17:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11514477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aretia/pseuds/aretia
Summary: [Abandoned] Sacrificing themselves for the paladins isn’t the end for Ulaz and Thace, thanks to a discovery Ulaz makes about his past.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For Thulaz Week day 7: free day/AU
> 
> Edit: Changed the title from Pull Me Out to Bloodlines because I now have a way more ambitious outline in mind with different themes. And once again, it's a song title. Check out the song Bloodlines by Hands Like Houses.
> 
> Art by xblackpaladin [here](https://xblackpaladin.tumblr.com/post/166898329340/bloodlines-read-the-fic-here-would-you-rather)

When he ran away to join the Blade of Marmora, Ulaz had stolen his father’s ship. It was too unusual looking to take with him when he went undercover in the Empire, but the Blade of Marmora had kept it for him at their base. When he had arrived at Thaldykon, he had received a surprise: someone from the Blade had delivered his old ship to the base. Not Kolivan, since Kolivan had all but exiled him from the Blade once he made the decision to free Shiro, and sent him to an isolated base where he wouldn’t cause any trouble. Thace would think of something so considerate, but he couldn’t have been the one to carry it out, since he was still undercover. Ulaz figured that Antok had dropped off the ship, possibly on Thace’s suggestion. Antok had always had a soft spot for Thace and Ulaz, treating them like younger brothers since they arrived at the base as new initiates, and with how much Kolivan trusted him, he could get away with just about anything. Ulaz thanked whichever of his friends had given him that small comfort as he plunged to his doom. 

Ulaz flew into the mouth of the Prorok robeast and closed his eyes. He had watched from a distance as Voltron got clobbered by it, until he couldn’t take it anymore. Everything he had already sacrificed would be for naught if they gave themselves up here. He had to save them, even if that meant he would have to make the final sacrifice. 

Once he was inside, he pressed the button to open up the space rift. He felt it tear through him immediately. Except it wasn’t just one kind of pain. He also felt like he was being crushed from all sides, and stretched, and disintegrated. He was ready for release, but then he felt something tug at him. He felt like he was holding Thace’s hand. Suddenly that was all he could think about, not the pain, just how desperately he wanted to see Thace one last time. The last thing he felt was a searing heat inside of him, and then it all stopped. 

Ulaz gasped for breath on the floor of his ship. He pushed himself to his hands and knees, and experimentally touched each part of his body, amazed to find himself intact. He was alive? How? 

Ulaz stood up and went to check his computer. The date indicated that while it felt like only an instant inside the rift, he had actually been gone for several movements. The latest messages from the Blade of Marmora were about a plot to defeat Zarkon, and the coordinates were near where Ulaz was now. 

He brought up the ship’s log, and found that its most recent record was of passing through a wormhole. Ulaz’s face contorted with surprise. He thought only Alteans could create wormholes. Had Princess Allura created a wormhole to get him out? While it seemed unlikely with how much the princess disliked him, it was also impossible, because the interference from the space rift would be too great to act on it from the outside. 

Then the wormhole must have opened from the inside. He must have opened it himself. 

He dashed to the engine room of the ship. Next to the conventional Galra engine, there was a teludav, and sure enough it showed signs of being used recently, cracks splintering across the surface of a few of the lenses.

Ulaz stared at his reflection in one of them. Yellow Galra eyes set in pale lilac skin, fleshy pointed ears sticking out on the sides of his head. He ran his hand through his tuft of white hair. He had always looked strange for a Galra. He didn’t look like his parents, or his classmates in school who always teased him about his ears. Even the Blades of Marmora, diverse misfits themselves, usually did a double take whenever he took off his mask. 

Ulaz never knew his biological father, the one who had built this ship. His stepfather told Ulaz when he was older that his father had died in a mining accident. Ulaz knew that in his colony, where there was a heavy Galra military presence, that was code for being taken away by the Galra. 

He faintly remembered mornings in his childhood waking up floating near the ceiling, or his hands glowing when he got particularly angry. He remembered being told to suppress it and punished when he did it on accident, probably so that he didn’t get taken away too. He never thought he’d be able to use those powers again, or figure out why he had them. But now he understood what all the evidence was leading him to, absurd though it might be.

Ulaz was part Altean and had magic powers, including opening wormholes and who knew what else. He would process that later. The pain of being trapped inside the space rift must have caused him to accidentally activate the teludav on instinct. But how had he ended up here, in the center of the action where the Blade of Marmora was planning their final attack?

Thace. He had felt Thace with him moments before the wormhole opened. He must have locked on to Thace’s life signal and used that as the coordinates for the wormhole trip. It wasn’t precise enough to get him to exactly where Thace was, but it had gotten him within range, which was remarkable over such a long distance. His bond with Thace was strong enough to pull him across galaxies, and that brought a tear to Ulaz’s eye. 

Maybe it had been because Thace was calling out to him. Maybe Thace was in distress too. Ulaz had to find him. He focused and tried to tap into that feeling again. He felt nothing at first. The signal was fainter than it had been before, and that worried him. Then, it slammed into him like an asteroid. Thace, held captive by the druids, wounded and tortured and scared. Ulaz collapsed to his knees and cried out from the pain that flooded into him over the connection. It was more than he could bear to see Thace like that, but at least he knew where Thace was now. At least he had a chance at saving him. 

He didn’t know if the connection went both ways. If it was his Altean magic, maybe not. But he hoped Thace could hear him when he said, “Hold on, Thace. I’m coming for you.”


	2. Chapter 2

The wormhole trip exhausted Ulaz more than it should have. His Altean quintessence levels were lower than they needed to be to operate the teludav, since he wasn’t a full-blood Altean. Ulaz barely managed to stand on his feet, propping himself up on the dais, as he flew in the direction of the coordinates.

Zarkon’s mothership loomed in the distance, surrounded by a dense cloud of battle cruisers and fighter planes. When Ulaz entered their ranks, none of the ships paid any attention to his humble craft. They were distracted by something far above the horizon. He saw a blue streak of light dart out from behind Zarkon’s ship and then disappear again, one that could only have been made by the Blue Lion.

Ulaz was relieved to see proof that his sacrifice at Thaldycon had worked. He had been worried that the wormhole might have disrupted the destruction of the robeast. When he saw that the Blade was mounting an attack, he was reassured somewhat, because there was no way that Kolivan would approve such a thing if Voltron had already been defeated. Still, seeing the lion’s trail felt like a blessing. It reminded Ulaz that for once, he could pick his battles. He had one mission. Save Thace.

Ulaz locked onto Thace’s life signal again. He had changed location, and now seemed to be in the control center surrounding the ship’s power core. Ulaz could still sense his pain and exhaustion, but at least he was out of the druids’ grasp. Ulaz positioned his ship in front of the point that would provide the closest thing to a straight shot to where Thace was, assuming he could find his way inside from there.

Ulaz lingered on his vision of Thace for a moment too long. A fighter plane that had just emerged from one of the docks nearby finally took notice of the unidentified craft approaching the Galra ship, and fired on it. The first shot hit Ulaz’s wing and shook the ship, startling him out of his projection. He managed to dodge the rest of the shots, barely, as the steering was compromised because of the damaged wing.

He maneuvered past the fighter, and it didn’t pursue him, instead following its orders to go attack the lions. Ulaz smirked. He was lucky that the Galra pilot or AI controlling it wasn’t smart enough to realize that he would’ve been a much easier target than the lions.

The dock it had left was still open. Ulaz tried to aim for the narrowing space between the doors, attempting to wedge his ship through on its side with a violent twist of the joystick. The damaged wing didn’t allow for such finesse. The chassis made it through, but the broken wing got torn clean off. Ulaz’s ship skidded along the runway, and he tried to put down the landing gear, but that had been destroyed as well by his rough entry. With no way to steer and no way to slow down, he just held on for his life until he crashed through the wall of the control room.

Ulaz scanned the room through the fractured glass window of his ship. He didn’t see Thace anywhere, just a bunch of sentries on the catwalk firing at the control panel. Had his sense been wrong? He hadn’t had much time to hone it or figure out why it was happening, after all. Maybe he had come all this way for nothing…

Then, a return shot came from behind the panel, and Ulaz thought he saw a familiar pair of ear tips peeking out from it.

Drawing his blade to protect himself from the sentries, Ulaz emerged from the door on the side of his ship. “Thace!” Ulaz called out.

“Ulaz?” Thace’s voice rang out. Thace rose from his crouch enough for Ulaz to see his face. He looked as if he had been watching in astonishment as a ship crashed through the wall, and was now even more astonished that Ulaz had just stepped out of it. Ulaz, for his part, was equally shocked that he had been able to find Thace, too.

Thace ran out from behind the panel, holding his blade to his side to deflect the sentries’ shots. He grabbed Ulaz’s hand, and Ulaz swung him onto the ship and into a tight embrace.

“Thace,” Ulaz gasped against the fur of Thace’s neck. Ulaz breathed in his scent, pungent with sweat and blood and charred fur, but Thace’s all the same. He was here. He was real.

Ulaz tensed up as Thace broke from his grasp and roughly pushed him aside. “We don’t have time for this,” Thace snapped.

Ulaz recoiled from Thace’s harsh tone. Now that he had taken a step back from Thace, Ulaz immediately noticed the glowing wound on Thace’s chest. Along with the generally tense situation, that could certainly be making him more irritable than usual. Thace backtracked after seeing Ulaz’s hurt expression, and his voice softened as he said, “Sorry. But this room is going to explode in five doboshes.”

Ulaz’s expression brightened, the elation of seeing Thace again mingling with exhaustion-fueled mania. “No need to worry, I’ll just wormhole us out of here!” He turned to face the dais.

“Wormhole? Ulaz, how hard did you hit your head in that crash?”

“How do you think I got here?” Ulaz responded, barely looking over his shoulder at Thace as he entered the coordinates for the Blade base. The problem with having made the wormhole accidentally the first time was that he wasn’t sure how to do it, but he managed to find something that looked like the wormhole program. He placed his hands on the dais to power the wormhole… and nothing happened. In the back of his head, he felt Thace staring at him, unimpressed.

“Three doboshes,” Thace muttered.

“I don’t know why it’s not working. Let me see…” Ulaz brought up the diagnostic panel. An alarm beeped and an error message appeared, displaying an image of the cracked teludav lenses. “Oh, that’s nothing. Override,” Ulaz said nonchalantly. It would break the teludav, but if it could get them to safety just this once, they wouldn’t need it anymore.

The screen displayed another error. This time, it complained that it didn’t have enough power to perform the override. With some of the crystals cracked, the teludav would need more quintessence, more than it detected inside its only power source: Ulaz.

“What does that mean?” Thace said, staring at the inscription just as quizzically as Ulaz. He placed his hand on the small of Ulaz’s back as he peered over his shoulder. A shiver ran up Ulaz’s spine, and he leaned into the touch. Thace was less pleased. As he read the screen, his eyes widened first from confusion, then from terror. “Ulaz. No. You can’t do this. Can’t you just fly us out?”

“One of the wings was damaged on the way in,” Ulaz told him. “The teludav is the only part of this ship that can still make it fly.”

“That thing says you’ll _die_ if you try to power it,” Thace protested.

“That is _not_ what it says,” Ulaz insisted, with less conviction in his voice than he had hoped. “These calculations are probably based on full-blood Alteans. It doesn’t apply to me.”

That didn’t make any sense and Ulaz knew it. His quintessence wasn’t pure Altean, so if anything the machine would need _more_ of it, and push him closer to the brink of death, since he would be giving the energy he needed for his vital functions to power the teludav. Ulaz just hoped that it would go over Thace’s head enough that he would let him try.

It didn’t work. Thace’s brows furrowed and he growled, “No. You just came back to me after all this time. I’m not going to let you sacrifice yourself for me.”

“You said yourself we don’t have time for this,” Ulaz countered. “Would you rather spend the last dobosh of your life with me before we both die in flames, or trust me and take the chance that we make it out alive?”

Thace scowled, but didn’t say anything more.

Ulaz pressed his hands to the dais. Thace laid one of his hands on top of Ulaz’s.

“It’s the only way,” Ulaz said.

Thace’s presence by his side gave him focus as Ulaz poured every last drop of his life force into creating the wormhole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a quick update! I'm not sure I can promise a repeat performance. I have a busy weekend planned. I for one am excited to write chapter 3, so I hope you all get excited for it!


	3. Chapter 3

Thace woke up on the floor of Ulaz’s ship. He had never been in a wormhole before, but he didn’t think they were supposed to be that rough. His entire body ached from the wormhole trip, and he hadn’t had a chance to recover from the druids’ torture, the wound on his chest searing with pain. Still, he was alive. 

Forcing himself to sit up, Thace looked out the window. They were floating in empty space with nothing but stars around them, not a Galra ship to be seen. One tick later and he might have been on his way to the stars in a different way.

Thace turned to Ulaz, who was collapsed on the floor a few feet from him, and gave him an adoring smile.

“Ulaz. We made it. We… you did it,” Thace said softly.

But something was wrong. Something about the way Ulaz’s jaw hung slack didn’t look right. Thace scooted over to him—moving was still an effort—and touched his face. He was stone cold.

“Ulaz? You okay?”

Thace pulled Ulaz into his lap, groaning at the weight. Ulaz’s head fell back against Thace’s leg, his neck bending at an awkward angle. Thace propped up Ulaz’s head in his hand and brought his face down close to Ulaz’s. He didn’t feel Ulaz’s breath against his face. 

He pressed his lips close to Ulaz’s ear. “H-hey, Ulaz, love. It’s—it’s time to wake up now. We’re safe now. Ulaz?”

Silence lingered in the air and Thace slowly pulled back from Ulaz. He sat there in shock for a moment, staring out the window at the stars, anywhere but Ulaz. His fingers found the pulse point on Ulaz’s neck, and met only soft, pliant skin.

He looked down at Ulaz again as a tear fell from his cheek onto Ulaz’s pale face.

Thace’s body started to shake with uncontrollable sobs. Tears burst from his eyes and anguished sounds clawed their way out of his throat with no way of holding them back. 

Thace tried to revive him. He pounded against Ulaz’s chest with the heels of his palms, hard enough to bruise and fast enough to match the pace of the tears burning down his cheeks. He tilted Ulaz’s chin back, pressed his lips against Ulaz’s mouth and blew a breath into him. It felt so wrong. They didn’t even have one last kiss. With Ulaz’s body lying still underneath him, it wasn’t the same. Ulaz was gone.

Thace had already come to terms with the possibility that Ulaz might be dead once. When Ulaz stopped replying to his messages over their private channel, he knew that something might have happened to him at the Thaldycon base. As the quintants dragged on without contact, the worst became more likely. When he had been away from him for so long, it was with a grim resignation that Thace had realized that his beloved was dead.

Only for a moment, he hadn’t been. For a moment, Thace had held Ulaz in his arms, and heard his voice. Thace didn’t know where he had been for those past three movements, but Ulaz had returned to him, alive and well. 

Then, just like that, he was gone again. And this time, he wasn’t coming back. Thace still hadn’t had the chance to say all the things he needed to say before his last goodbye with Ulaz. He had to tell him how much he loved him, how much he missed him when he was away, how proud he was of everything Ulaz had done. But he couldn’t bring himself to say any of that now that Ulaz couldn’t hear it. 

The sobs were little more than dry gasps now. Thace felt exhausted, and numb. At the same time he was in immeasurable pain. His body could take a beating, this he had known since his Trial, and it took more than an interrogation to break him. But losing Ulaz, after he had been so close to getting him back, cut deeper than anything the druids could do to him.

“How could you?” Thace whispered, his voice strangled. “How could you leave this world without me? We were supposed to go together.” 

Ever since they had fallen in love as initiates, Thace had known the risk he was taking by getting involved with another Blade. Their lives would always be marked by danger. Thace knew he would never have a peaceful life with Ulaz, so he made his own dream. If he and Ulaz were to give their lives for the Blade, Thace wanted to die side by side with Ulaz in battle. He didn’t want Ulaz to sacrifice himself so that Thace could live, because Thace didn’t want to live without him. He didn’t understand how any being could be in as much pain as he was and still be alive.

But Ulaz wanted him to live, so as much as it would hurt, Thace would carry on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *disappears back into hiatus after dropping this evil update*


	4. Chapter 4

Ulaz had never felt so exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to rest, but something was keeping him barely conscious. Once again, Ulaz felt Thace’s energy surrounding him, pulling him back from the brink. He felt Thace’s touch, warm and comforting, and wanted to bring him closer. Although his body felt like lead and he couldn’t lift his arm to search for Thace’s hand as he intended, he mustered up the strength to curl his fingers. 

As if through a telepathic connection, Thace gave him what he wanted, and took hold of Ulaz’s hand immediately. He interlaced his fingers with Ulaz’s, then lifted their hands and pressed the back of Ulaz’s hand to his cheek, nuzzling against it. “Ulaz? Are you awake?” Thace murmured, in a voice hoarse with grief.

Ulaz forced his eyes open. The bright lights of the ship blinded him, but slowly Thace came into focus, a sight for sore eyes even with tears staining the fur on his cheeks. When he met Ulaz’s gaze, his despairing expression turned into a soft smile. Tears started to run from the corners of his eyes again, tears of relief this time.

“Ulaz!” Thace cried, and Ulaz found himself pulled up against Thace’s chest in a tight hug that nearly squeezed the breath out of him. “Thank the stars you’re alive. I thought I’d lost you. You risked your life to save me…”

“And I would do it again,” Ulaz said, finally finding the energy to speak. 

Thace pulled back slightly, held Ulaz by the shoulders and looked into his eyes. “No. You listen to me. You are never, ever going to do anything like that again.”

“But we survived, didn’t we?” Ulaz said, a petulant smile creeping across his lips.

Thace let out a spasm of a breath. “ _You_ seemed like you were dead for a tick there. You weren’t breathing. Stars, Ulaz…” He couldn’t finish his sentence with anything more than an exasperated sigh. Then, he closed the space between them again, touching his forehead to Ulaz’s and rubbing their noses together. Ulaz let out a contented purr, savoring the moment and Thace’s closeness. 

“How did you do it? How did you create the wormhole?” Thace asked.

“This ship has a teludav,” Ulaz stated, and Thace nodded, nudging him to say more. That much was obvious. “I inherited the ship from my father… and apparently some Altean magic too.”

Thace’s jaw dropped. His ears twitched as he processed that statement, as if trying to pick up an echo of what Ulaz had said just to be sure. “You—you’re Altean?” Thace stammered. 

“I am part Altean, it seems,” Ulaz confirmed. “It’s probably just a trace from far back in my ancestry on my father’s side. After all, I look more Galra than anything, though I do have some Altean features. And Alteans were all but wiped out by the Galra Empire centuries ago.” There was a touch of growling resentment in his voice as he said that, but it was gone a moment later. “Which makes me curious as to how the magic got passed down through so many generations…”

“How did you figure all of this out?” Thace asked, interrupting Ulaz before he could go off on some scientific rambling.

Ulaz hesitated. He knew Thace wasn’t going to like this part. “Well, when I was at the Thaldykon base, the Voltron paladins showed up, and they were followed by a robeast. They couldn’t defeat it on their own, so I flew inside it and used the base’s gravity generator to destroy it, and that’s when I accidentally opened up a wormhole to escape.”

This time Thace was even more incredulous. “You did _what_ at Thaldykon?” Thace gasped. “Are you seriously telling me that you tried to sacrifice yourself not once, but _twice?_ I can’t leave you alone for one tick, can I?” 

Ulaz had been through this before, and he knew words couldn’t win him this argument. He just reached up to scratch behind the base of Thace’s ears. Ulaz leaned closer to Thace and ran his tongue along the fur covering Thace’s ears, slicking it back. A purr involuntarily rose from Thace’s throat in response to the gentle grooming. “ _Stop_ that. I’m _mad_ at you,” Thace scolded, though he made no move to pull away.

“No you’re not,” Ulaz teased, continuing to rub Thace’s ears. 

“You’re right, I’m not,” Thace sighed, leaning into Ulaz’s touch. “I’m too relieved that you’re alive and you’re here with me to be mad at you. Even if you did almost get yourself killed twice in the past few movements.”

Ulaz placed his hand on Thace’s chest, next to his wound, and said, “If I hadn’t appeared in that control room, were you not about to do the same?” 

Thace’s ears drooped and he frowned as he realized that Ulaz was right. Like any true soldier of the Blade of Marmora, they had both laid down their lives for the cause of helping Voltron defeat Zarkon. They had done so even if it meant giving up the chance to see each other again—and made it back to each other all the same. 

Ulaz adjusted himself in Thace’s lap to move closer to him and nestled his head upon Thace’s collarbone. “You saved me too,” he said, his words muffled with his lips against Thace’s neck. “I honed in on your life signal, and that’s how I was able to wormhole to where you were. If I hadn’t felt you calling out to me, we would both be dead.”

Thace angled his head down to look at Ulaz with an adoring smile and a soft gaze. “You came back for me,” Thace whispered. And that was exactly what Ulaz had done. He had warped from one battle into another to save Thace. He had come back from the edge of oblivion to return to Thace. Despite Thace’s protests, he would do it all again, and he knew that Thace would do the same for him.

Thace’s hand cupped Ulaz’s chin and tilted his face up to kiss him. They stayed with their lips locked for longer than they usually allowed themselves to, because this was the end of their clandestine meetings in the hallways of enemy ships. For once, they had the time and the safety to celebrate that they had survived, and they were together again. 

They were so distracted that it was several doboshes before they remembered that they were adrift in empty space in a wrecked ship. They both came to this realization at the same time. “I should probably send out a distress signal or something,” Thace said.

“That might expose us to an attack,” Ulaz countered. “You know, I could try again with the wormhole to get us to headquarters—”

Thace shushed him with another kiss. “Don’t even think about it,” he said. Ulaz smiled to himself. He was joking, of course, but he liked to make Thace so protective. He had missed him, and since he’d had almost no contact of any sort since he’d first been transferred to Thaldykon, Ulaz couldn’t resist messing with him a little. 

Thace scooted Ulaz off of his lap, stood up, and walked over to the controls. Ulaz sprawled out on the floor in the meantime. Thace set up the distress beacon and returned within a dobosh, and lay down next to Ulaz, tucking himself in under Ulaz’s arm and resting his head on Ulaz’s chest. Ulaz wrapped his arms around him. Thace breathed evenly, soothed by the sound of Ulaz’s heartbeat. Holding Thace close to him made Ulaz feel safe, and he soon gave way to the exhaustion still weighing on his body and closed his eyes.

A few vargas later, they woke up to a blast of static over their intercom. Someone had picked up their distress signal. Thace and Ulaz sat up, and waited for their receiver to untangle the message. 

“Greetings, stranded craft. I am Princess Allura, with the Paladins of Voltron. We are here to help you.”


	5. Chapter 5

Thace and Ulaz sat in stunned silence. Only the background noise from the channel filled the ship. Ulaz recognized the paladins’ voices. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea? You remember what happened last time,” Hunk whispered to the others. 

“You mean the part where we met a pretty girl who was actually into me?” said Lance. “I wouldn’t mind a repeat performance of that.”

“Have you forgotten the part where she _stole the Blue Lion?_ ” Hunk fired back.

“We’re live, you dorks. Don’t give them any ideas,” Pidge chastised.

“Please identify yourselves,” Allura said, clearer than the others, as she was most likely speaking directly into the microphone. 

Thace looked to Ulaz, silently asking for his permission. If these really were the paladins, they would be better able to help them if they revealed themselves, but they didn’t want to risk falling into a trap. Ulaz nodded his assurance that it was safe.

Thace walked up to the controls and turned on the microphone. “Thace and Ulaz, of the Blade of Marmora,” Thace said, steadily but with an unmistakable note of nervousness.

“Thace?!” exclaimed Keith. Thace let out a breath of relief when he heard the voice of the only paladin he had met. “You’re alive? And Ulaz is with you?”

“Yes,” Thace said. “Ulaz?” Ulaz tried to push himself to his feet, with noticeable effort. Thace came over and held out his hand to pull Ulaz up, and then supported Ulaz with his arm as he walked them back to the control panel.

“Hello, paladins,” Ulaz greeted them. “It’s good to hear from you again. Especially since without you, we’d be lost in the void of space.”

“It’s really them,” rumbled a deeper voice in the background, not one of the paladins. Kolivan. 

Ulaz froze. His last days in the Blade of Marmora had been filled with tension between him and the leader. Between freeing Shiro, giving the paladins the location of headquarters, and sacrificing himself for them, Ulaz had broken at least a dozen protocols. He hadn’t been expecting to face Kolivan before getting back to headquarters. He hadn’t expected to make it back to headquarters at all. Thace noticed Ulaz’s tension and tightened his arm around him, while Ulaz braced himself for Kolivan’s reprimand.

“What are you waiting for? Bring them on board,” Kolivan ordered. 

“Right away,” said Coran.

A tractor beam pulled their ship around to face the castle and towed it into the dock. The door of the landing bay closed behind them. Thace didn’t let go of Ulaz’s hand as they climbed out of their ship, Ulaz leaning heavily against Thace’s shoulder. Assembled in front of them were four paladins, two Alteans, and Slav and Kolivan.

Kolivan pushed in front of the paladins and approached Thace and Ulaz. He seemed to look only at Thace at first, and when he did meet Ulaz’s gaze, his eyes narrowed in something like scorn. 

Ulaz pushed himself away from Thace’s side and stood up straight, leveling his gaze with the slightly taller leader. Now he was sure he was about to face a storm of harsh criticism. But Kolivan’s eyes softened and all he said was, “You’re alive.”

Thace took the lead. “Yes. All thanks to Ulaz,” he said, placing his hand proudly atop his mate’s shoulder. “Was the plan successful?”

“Yes, as far as I know,” Kolivan said, in a solemn tone. His breath hitched, as if he was fighting to maintain his composure. “But there were some… casualties.”

Thace’s ears pinned back against the sides of his head and his face fell. There was only one Blade of Marmora who could elicit such a reaction from Kolivan. The one who was inseparable from Kolivan, and a dear friend of Thace and Ulaz’s, too. “Antok?” Thace asked, horrified.

“Antok…” Kolivan said with a sigh, struggling to get the words out. “Antok was severely injured and is currently recovering in a healing pod.” Thace’s posture relaxed slightly, although that still wasn’t good news. Kolivan’s face was still twisted in consternation. 

“There was only a 0.0012 percent chance that all four of you would make it out alive,” chimed in Slav. “We are living in a highly improbable reality! I need to rework all my calculations!” He started counting on his fingers, then scurried out of the room to record some new theory.

Kolivan continued, “And… the Black Paladin… has disappeared.”

This time it was Ulaz who had the more visceral reaction. His eyes widened and his body crumpled visibly, so much so that Thace briefly put his arm around him to steady him. He hadn’t known Shiro for very long, but from what he did know, the universe wouldn’t stand a chance without him. “No… Shiro?” he murmured in disbelief. 

“He’s not a casualty,” Keith blurted out. “Shiro’s out there, and we’re going to find him.” 

“Easy, Keith,” said Lance. “Of course we will.” 

“I’m working on an algorithm that will help me predict his location,” said Pidge. “And my brother’s.”

“We would like to help any way we can,” Ulaz offered.

“I think we could use all the help we can get, I mean, it sounds good to me,” said Hunk.

“I don’t see why not,” Coran agreed. Then he started mumbling to himself, “This castle is getting rather crowded. I’m afraid we only have one bedroom left on the main deck…”

Kolivan overheard him, and responded, “Trust me, they won’t need separate bedrooms.” 

The paladins started snickering and making mock gasps. Coran cleared his throat emphatically. “A- _hem_. Would you two like me to show you to the healing pods? It doesn’t exactly look as if you made it out unscathed.”

“That would be much appreciated,” said Thace. Coran led them down the hallway. The rest of the group exited the hangar too, and parted ways with them when they went inside the door to the lounge. Thace held Ulaz’s hand again once the crowd had left them to themselves. 

Coran opened the door to a room, and inside it was an array of cylindrical glass chambers. Inside one of them stood Antok, with his arms folded over a giant wound across his chest. The healing pod had already made some progress repairing the wound, which was scarred over in some places, but the extent of his injury was still clear. It seemed that they had gotten him into the pod just in time. Ulaz glanced down at Thace’s chest, where he had a similar wound, and wondered how close they had come to their time running out.

Thace and Ulaz stood somberly observing Antok inside his pod, while Coran rummaged around in a cabinet on the opposite wall. He returned holding two pieces of folded white clothing and handed them to Thace and Ulaz. “These are suits made to optimize your recovery in the healing pod,” Coran explained. “If I remember correctly, the extra-large size fits an average-sized Galra. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any that could accommodate Antok’s size, or his tail, so he might be in there a little longer. But you two should be fixed up in no time.” 

“Thank you, Coran,” said Thace. 

The doors to two of the pods slid open. “I’ll leave you alone for a dobosh to change into those suits. Then, just step in there and everything will be taken care of,” Coran said. “Enjoy your cryo-nap!” He walked out of the room and disappeared around the corner.

Ulaz started to remove his armor piece by piece, and Thace did the same. Ulaz for the most part kept his eyes focused on his own body, but he kept getting distracted looking at Thace. He wasn’t exactly admiring the view. His eyes kept flicking back to the wound on Thace’s chest. He had been worried about it before, but there was nothing he could do about it. Now he was acutely aware of the fact that Thace was injured and could just as easily have slipped away from him as Ulaz almost had. 

Thace pulled the white suit up over his chest. He took a step closer and cupped Ulaz’s face in his hands. “Ulaz? What’s wrong?” Thace asked softly. 

“I almost lost you,” Ulaz whispered, idly tracing his fingers along Thace’s chest.

Thace enfolded Ulaz in his arms. “We’re fine. We’re going to be fine,” he murmured soothingly in Ulaz’s ear. “We just need to rest for a little while.” 

Thace’s hand cradled the back of Ulaz’s head and pulled him down for a kiss. The warmth of the kiss spread through Ulaz and eased his mind somewhat. “I love you,” Thace said. 

“I love you too,” Ulaz replied. “Goodnight, Thace.”

“Goodnight, Ulaz,” Thace echoed. 

They pulled apart, still holding hands as they turned to face their adjacent healing pods. Ulaz felt Thace’s fingers slip away from his own as he stepped inside the chamber. The door slid shut behind him, and he instantly fell asleep.


	6. Chapter 6

Thace’s eyes snapped open and he gasped for breath. As soon as the door to the pod opened, he stumbled out and put his hands on the nearest thing he could find to support himself. 

It took him a moment to realize where he was: inside the castle, in the healing pod room, _safe._ He had just woken up from a nightmare that had made him feel anything but. He couldn’t remember a single detail of it, just the fear that had left his heart pounding and his lungs heaving. The castle was in its night cycle, and he let the quiet hum of the castle’s machinery and the soft glow of aqua blue lights soothe his nerves for a moment. 

He looked up at the cool glass column that his hands had landed on. Ulaz stood inside the healing pod, looking every bit like he was resting peacefully. A flashback from the nightmare hit Thace. That was exactly how he had looked just before something terrible happened to him—Thace still couldn’t remember what, nor did he want to. 

The door to the room whooshed open behind Thace, startling him. “Good morning, Thace,” said Coran’s voice.

Thace spun around. “Morning?” Thace repeated.

“Well, technically morning, it’s the first varga of the quintant,” Coran explained. 

“Then what are you doing up?” Thace asked slowly. 

“I got a ping that one of our patients had come out of the pod, so I came to see how you were doing,” Coran said brightly. He didn’t look as if he had just woken up, which meant that he probably hadn’t gone to sleep at all. He offered Thace the bundle in his arms, a fluffy white blanket. “It can get chilly inside those cryo-pods, since they freeze you and all.” 

“Thanks, Coran,” Thace said, slightly caught off guard by the kindness. Now that Coran mentioned it, Thace did feel cold. He took the blanket from Coran and tucked it around his shoulders like a cape. 

“How long was I out?” Thace asked.

“It’s been a few quintants,” Coran replied.

Thace nodded in quiet surprise. His eyes drifted back to Ulaz. “Why isn’t he healed yet? We got in at the same time…”

“Let me see,” Coran said. He touched the glass and brought up a holographic panel in front of the healing pod. He tapped around on it for a few ticks and read off the screen, “Diagnosis: internal damage from being caught inside the space pocket, and critically low quintessence levels.” 

Thace winced; that sounded serious. “Is he going to make it?” he whimpered.

“He is scheduled to make a full recovery by tomorrow morning. Er, later today,” Coran reassured him. 

Thace smiled momentarily with relief, then turned back to face Ulaz.

“I can tell you really care about him,” Coran remarked.

“Of course. He’s my…” Thace realized he didn’t have a term that could describe it to Coran. They should have been bondmates, but getting officially bonded had never been an option for them in the Blade of Marmora. There was too much risk that their connection would be discovered while they were undercover, and not enough time when they were together to have a ceremony. Simply _mate_ or _partner_ didn’t seem to capture the depth of what they meant to each other. Maybe Alteans didn’t have the same mating conventions as Galra and he would be spewing nonsense anyway. 

“When I compared your vitals, I found that the quintessence in both of you was the same,” Coran said. “Not just the similarity that would be expected in a couple. His quintessence was yours. His own will recover in time, but it looked as if Ulaz had drained his quintessence, and you gave him yours to bring him back to life.”

“How is that possible?” Thace asked. He knew from his time as a Galra officer that the Galra had been trying to find ways to manipulate quintessence for centuries, and even the recent Komar experiment could only be used by druids. Thace wouldn’t have been able to do something like that unintentionally.

“Alteans that share a close bond can transfer quintessence,” Coran answered. “But I never would have thought that an Altean-Galra hybrid could initiate it with a full-blood Galra. What was he doing that drained his quintessence like that?” 

“He made a wormhole,” Thace said. “Or, actually, _two_ wormholes. He was at Thaldykon, and then he showed up in Zarkon’s ship during the sabotage. He rescued me and wormholed us out of there just before the control room exploded, and that’s how we ended up where you found us.” The more he thought about that story, the more ridiculous it seemed. 

Coran raised his eyebrows. “He was able to travel from Thaldykon to Zarkon’s ship and find you? That’s impossible… unless he locked on to your quintessence signature.”

“Yes, I think he said something about that,” Thace recalled. 

Not much surprised Coran, but that made his jaw drop. “I’ve heard of Alteans with an emotional bond being able to direct a wormhole using each other’s life energy as a guide, just like the quintessence transfer. But for a part-Galra to do it, and so precisely that he was able to find the exact room you were in to rescue you… You two must have the strongest bond imaginable.”

Thace smiled bashfully, putting his hand up behind his head to rub the back of his neck, where his skin felt hot and his fur prickled. Ulaz had laid down his life to save Thace, that much he knew. What Thace didn’t know was that he had saved Ulaz too, without even thinking about it. He brought him back because he couldn’t live without him.

His fond thoughts of Ulaz were interrupted by Coran speaking in an urgent tone, as if he had just remembered something. “Thace. The cryo-pods automatically do a genetic test. It informed me about Ulaz’s Altean heritage, but there is something I have to tell you about your genetics, too,” Coran said. “You might want to sit down for this.” 

“What, am I part Altean too?” Thace asked, huffing a small laugh. His legs were sore from the healing pod, so he sat down on the floor, crossing his legs.

“No,” Coran said, copying him and sitting down cross-legged as well. “It turns out that the Red Paladin, Keith… is your nephew.”

Thace had to lean back against Ulaz’s pod to keep from falling over. “He’s Sedri’s son?” he murmured in astonishment. Sedri, his older sister who had disappeared on a Blade mission almost twenty decaphoebs ago, had a child. With a local from an alien planet, apparently. Finally, after so long with no contact, he had a connection to her again. 

“How do you know?” Thace asked.

“Well, after he did the Trial of Marmora, he was pretty roughed up. I have a feeling you might know something about that. So we put him in the healing pod, and it told us that sure enough, he’s part Galra, just like Kolivan said. When you went in the healing pod, it automatically compared your profile to Keith’s, and that’s how I found out you’re related.” 

It was an avalanche of new information, but the piece that Thace caught onto was that _Keith had gone through the Trial of Marmora._ It made sense, since the first time he met Keith, he had been wielding an awakened blade. But at the time he didn’t know Keith was his nephew. The idea of his own kin going through that torture— _without_ the lifetime of training for it that he would have had _if Sedri had followed orders and come back to base when she was scheduled to_ —made Thace’s fur stand on end. 

“I’m sorry, you said he did _what?_ ” Thace gasped.

“It was my understanding that Shiro tried to stop him,” Coran sighed. “But we wouldn’t have our alliance with the Blade of Marmora without him, so I suppose it was for the best.”

Thace groaned in exasperation, rubbing his temples. First Sedri, then Ulaz, and now Keith. Everyone he loved turned out to have a penchant for flinging themselves into danger at every opportunity, and that was not good for Thace’s stress levels. 

“That was a lot to take in. You look like you need rest,” Coran commented, and Thace had never agreed with a statement more. “Shall I show you to your room?”

“No, I think I’ll stay here,” Thace said, nodding his head toward Ulaz’s healing pod. “Thank you for everything, Coran.” 

“You’re welcome. Let me know if you need anything else,” Coran said. “I’ll almost definitely be up.” He stood up, gave Thace a wave goodbye, and strode out of the room. 

Thace wondered why Coran didn’t seem tired or show any sign of wanting to go to sleep despite the late hour. Maybe he never slept, always running around the castle at all hours to help whoever needed it. Thace imagined he could use the distraction from being the last living member of his race, besides Allura… and Ulaz. 

Thace stared up at Ulaz, who still looked serene and ethereal inside the healing pod. He was breathtakingly pretty when he slept. But Thace wished he was sleeping next to him, holding him in his arms and seeing that face up close. Just a little longer until he would be healed. And Thace would be waiting here for him when he was. 

Thace determined that he was going to stay awake until Ulaz woke up, but that didn’t go as planned. Within the varga, he found himself dozing off with his head on the floor. He gave in, wrapping the blanket around himself like a cocoon. 

Just as he was about to fall asleep, he heard the door opening again. He didn’t expect Coran to come back so soon. But it wasn’t Coran. He heard the click of a Galra’s claws against the floor. Kolivan. Thace rolled over and turned his head to look at him. Kolivan didn’t notice Thace, as he looked like nothing more than a blanket crumpled up on the floor. Kolivan just stood in front of Antok’s pod at the end of the row, staring at it. Thace had a feeling he knew why. It was the same reason Thace was still in this room with Ulaz, though he really should have gone to bed. He smiled to himself. Kolivan was still there, silent, unmoving, when Thace surrendered to sleep and let his eyes fall shut.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry this took me so long. I started grad school and I couldn't find time to work on this chapter. I hope to get a better handle on my update schedule now that I've gotten used to the schoolwork. This double update isn't enough to be worth an almost 2 month long wait, but I hope you're still with me. 
> 
> Read the Antolivan side chapter here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12463875

Ulaz woke up to a stinging pain like a thousand needles digging into his body. He felt like his lungs were collapsing. He couldn’t breathe. 

The door opened. When the outside air hit his frozen skin, a deep chill ran through his body. His instincts told him to escape, but his muscles wouldn’t move. He staggered out of the pod, reaching his hands out for something to steady himself.

Thace caught him in his arms and pulled him close to his chest, and Ulaz felt a wave of relief. Thace gave him warmth, safety, comfort. 

“Thace, I’m cold,” Ulaz whimpered. 

The words had barely left his mouth before Thace was wrapping a blanket around his shoulders. Ulaz didn’t know where he had gotten it, but it was soft and warm and smelled like Thace. He pulled it tighter around himself and snuggled into Thace’s arms. Warmth seeped into him and the pain and the cold gradually subsided.

“Never let them put me in there again,” Ulaz said with a shudder. 

“Why?” Thace asked.

“It hurt me,” Ulaz hissed. He couldn’t explain why or how, only the deep dread in his gut at the thought of going inside one of those things and feeling that panic again. 

“Okay. That’s strange but… okay,” Thace said, hands gently rubbing Ulaz’s back. “But did it work? Do you feel better now?”

“Yes,” Ulaz said after a moment of contemplation. Now that he was comfortably warm and the pain and the stiffness had faded, he noticed that he felt less exhausted than when he had first stepped into the pod. 

“Good,” Thace said, giving him a tight squeeze and a kiss on the cheek. “Welcome back, Ulaz. I missed you so.” 

They stood there for a moment, nuzzling their cheeks against each other, blissfully unaware of their surroundings. Then they heard Coran’s voice calling out, “Morning, Thace, Ulaz! Good to see you’re awake too.” 

Thace and Ulaz flinched away from each other and looked at the doorway, embarrassed to be caught in such an intimate position, though Thace’s arms didn’t let go of Ulaz and they didn’t step apart. Coran didn’t comment on it. All he said was, “I left a change of clothes for you on that shelf over there if you want to change out of those healing pod suits. Come and meet us on the bridge when you’re ready.” Without even taking a step into the room, Coran continued down the hallway. 

Ulaz’s Marmora suit was probably in need of repairs, and Thace didn’t even have his. The clothes Coran had left for them appeared to be Altean pajamas. They helped each other unzip the healing pod suits and then changed into the clothes. Thace picked the dark gray one, and Ulaz put on one that was a pale bluish gray. 

“I look ridiculous,” Ulaz complained, pointing out how the loose pant legs only came down to his mid-calf. 

“You look cute,” Thace said, pressing another kiss to Ulaz’s cheek. 

“Shush, you,” Ulaz retorted, pulling him in for a quick kiss on the lips before they headed out of the room and down the hall. 

 

When Thace and Ulaz reached the bridge, everyone in the castle was already there, except for Kolivan. They had passed him in the hall on his way to the healing pod room. As soon as they arrived, Lance looked at them with an expression of mock offense. “Hey! You guys stole my look!” Lance said, clapping his hand over his pajama-clad chest.

“Lance, we all have a set of Altean pajamas. You’re just the only one who doesn’t change out of them when you get up in the morning,” Hunk teased. Pidge and Allura laughed at that. 

“Sorry, Lance,” Thace said. “It’s all we have. The rest of our clothes are battle damaged.”

“It’s alright. I was messing with you,” Lance said. “You look good in them.”

“It’s fitting, since Ulaz is half Altean,” Coran commented offhand, leaning against a wall and skimming through something on his datapad. His eyes widened and he looked up when he realized the weight of what he had just let slip to the entire team.

“Half? Half Altean? How is that possible?” Ulaz sputtered.

“Shh, Ulaz, breathe,” Thace whispered to him. 

Ulaz took a deep breath as Thace instructed. “I apologize. I’m a little overwhelmed. I just found out that I’m part Altean, but I thought it was a distant ancestor or something.” 

This explained so much, and left so many more questions. It explained why his magic powers were so strong, for one thing, if they weren’t diluted by many centuries and generations. It also meant that his missing birth father was a full-blood Altean. Which meant that the Altean race had survived longer than anyone had thought. “If I’m half, that must mean Alteans are still out there.”

“There must be a secret society of Alteans that survived the destruction of Altea,” Allura said, hope bubbling up in her voice. “We have to find them!”

“Wait a minute. I thought our mission right now was to find Shiro,” Keith argued.

Keith and Allura started bickering, their voices fading into the back of Ulaz’s mind. At the mention of Shiro, his head started to ache. He closed his eyes, and saw an image of Shiro’s face. It felt like the time he had sensed Thace in the Galra ship, except with a much fainter signal. All he saw was the blurry image of a nebula. Ulaz rubbed his temples.

“Ulaz? Is everything alright?” Thace asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. 

“I know where Shiro is,” Ulaz said. He broke free from Thace’s grasp and dashed over to the control panel. 

“What?” said Keith. “How?”

“Ulaz can lock onto quintessence signatures and locate people he has an emotional bond with,” Coran explained. 

“So he’s like some sort of cosmic bloodhound?” Lance piped up.

“I… don’t know what that is,” Coran said.

Their chatter was distracting Ulaz. The signal was hard enough to hold onto as it was. But he managed to sort out the vague images into some coordinates, and entered them in the ship’s navigation. Allura stood at the podium, ready to power the wormhole, when an error message appeared. Ulaz was thoroughly tired of seeing those.

“It says we can’t wormhole there,” Allura said in confusion.

“The most likely explanation is that the coordinates you entered are surrounded by a solar barrier,” Slav pointed out.

“Then just wormhole to the closest point where we can,” Pidge suggested.

“I… I can’t,” Allura said, fumbling with the screens in front of her. “Those coordinates scrambled the whole teludav system.” She shot Ulaz a poisonous glare.

“Allura, you can’t seriously still think that Ulaz is going to betray us,” Keith accused. “After he laid down his life for us, after everything the Blade of Marmora has done for us.”

“I never said that!” Allura defended herself. “I just think it’s strange that Ulaz suddenly has these _Altean_ powers when he’s only half, and then tells us to wormhole someplace that might as well not exist.”

“It exists,” Keith countered. “We have the coordinates right there. And for now it’s the best bet we have for finding Shiro. Can’t we just fly there without using a wormhole?”

“I suppose,” Coran said. “It’s not too far from our location. It’ll take a few quintants.”

Ulaz started to feel woozy. He put his hand on the dashboard. This hadn’t happened last time just from using his sense, but it seemed that trying to track Shiro was a different matter than tracking Thace. The room in front of him seemed to blur together with the nebula in his mind, until he blacked out.

“Ulaz!” Thace yelled. He ran to Ulaz’s side and caught him just before he hit the ground. 

“He wasn’t fully healed. Quick, get him to a healing pod!” Coran called.

Ulaz was still conscious enough to hear Coran, and he winced.

“No!” Thace said. “He doesn’t want to go in the healing pod.”

“Why?” Coran asked.

“It hurts him,” Thace said. “He just needs some time to rest.” He slid his arms under Ulaz’s body and lifted him up. Ulaz purred and nuzzled his cheek against Thace’s shoulder. Thace carried him out of the bridge and down the hall. 

 

Thace fumbled to get his palm on the scanner of the door. He stepped into the room that he and Ulaz had been assigned. He laid Ulaz down on the narrow bed and kneeled on the floor next to him. “Ulaz, are you okay?”

Ulaz stirred and groaned. “Yes… I need to go back there, I need to—”

“No, you don’t,” Thace said, gently pressing him down by the shoulder. When that didn’t work, and Ulaz still tried to get up, Thace climbed into the bed and held him. “You just fainted. You’re exhausted. And since you won’t go in the healing pod, I have to make sure that you take care of yourself.”

Ulaz smiled. Thace had saved him. Again. “Thank you,” he whispered.

Thace kissed Ulaz’s forehead. “Of course, love.”


	8. Chapter 8

Hi friends. It's time to close the curtains, pull the plug as it were, and let you know that I'm not going to continue this story. The last time I updated was 3 months ago, and I should have announced this a long time ago but I kept thinking that when I had time I would get back to it. But now that my life is less busy, I still don't feel the spark for it that I did in the beginning, and the quality is going to suffer if I force myself to do it. I need to work on newer projects. I'm sorry to tell you with an update but I just want to make sure everyone sees it. Thank you to everyone who read, commented, and supported me along the way. 

If you have questions about the rest of the story, please feel free to send me an ask or message at [fluffy-keef.tumblr.com](https://fluffy-keef.tumblr.com)

Here is the outline for the rest of the chapters, if you want to know what happens!

 

 **Chapter 8:** It’s been a few days since chapter 7, and here’s the state of things: Ulaz has to keep his sights on Shiro constantly as his location seems to be changing, and that exhausts him, because he’s trying to strengthen a bond without being with that person and using a power that he hasn’t honed yet. It’s explained in this chapter that that’s why he passed out. Thace is on his way to meet Ulaz in the training room when Keith stops him for an urgent family talk. At the same time as chapter 9, Keith and Thace are talking in Thace’s room. What with finding out they’re related, Ulaz and Keith both being half Galra, and the team being hot on Shiro’s trail thanks to Ulaz, they have a lot to talk about. Both Keith and Thace ask each other about their experiences with Keith’s mom, Sedri. Thace tells Keith that she must have left for a reason, and Keith doesn’t take that too well, but Thace explains that he’s grieving his sister too and he just wants to know what happened. Then, they talk about how Shiro has been the only family Keith had since she left, up until he became part of team Voltron, and how they’re close to finding Shiro thanks to Ulaz. Keith leaves before Ulaz comes back. 

**Chapter 9:** Ulaz and Allura spar to try to awaken his Altean powers and give her more practice with hers. They’re fighting side by side against the training robots. Allura is stubborn about working with Ulaz because she’s jealous of him, having powers that help find Shiro when he’s only half Altean, but does it anyway. Coran suggests it, Coran is coaching Allura, and Kolivan is coaching Ulaz. Thace is conspicuously absent. Ulaz wouldn’t do this in front of Thace anyway, he’d say it’s too dangerous. 

Allura is using her staff and Ulaz is using his blade. Ulaz is overwhelmed trying to fight with Allura, because he usually fights with Thace. Ulaz is the one who charges into danger and Thace covers him. Allura is a solo fighter. Allura fights the same way Ulaz does (rewatch both of their scenes, s2e13 for Allura), so he either has to adapt to being the backup or they both risk getting cornered. He thinks she’s behind him and then he’s like “wait where’d she go? I can’t protect you if you keep moving!” They get overwhelmed, and Allura lets the lightning loose. But she burns Ulaz’s arm in the process. Allura freaks out that she hurt Ulaz and stops the training session even though everyone else present wants it to continue, including injured Ulaz, he just doesn’t know when to stop, just like Keith. He wants a chance to prove himself and his Altean heritage. Ulaz insists that he doesn't need to go in the healing pod again because he hates it and slinks back to his room. 

**Chapter 10:** Ulaz walks in, exhausted and roughed up, expecting to find Thace already asleep and peacefully curl up next to him and not have to explain himself and his injuries. Instead, Thace is still up working. So Ulaz sneaks in behind him and silently flops down on the bed. “Ulaz? You’re back late—OH MY STARS ULAZ.” Thace freaks out when he sees Ulaz’s burn. He starts patching it up with the first aid kit in their room while he and Ulaz… argue, sort of. Aggressively care about each other. (In chapter 4 Ulaz gets Thace to stop being mad at him by grooming his ears. In chapter 12, he tries this again, and Thace says "NO, I AM NOT FALLING FOR THAT AGAIN, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THIS RIGHT NOW, DON'T YOU DARE TRY TO EVADE ME WITH YOUR MAGIC FINGERS") Describe every step of the process: Thace cleaning the wound and Ulaz hissing with pain at the stinging solution, and Thace kissing him to distract him. Thace wrapping a bandage around it, and icing it. (research how you’re supposed to treat burns.) Thace kisses on top of the bandage when he’s done. He’s so tender and caring and he just wants Ulaz to rest, so they go to bed.

When they’re lying in bed together, they have this exchange. 

Thace: "Even if you can share your quintessence with me, I know you. I know you're going to push yourself past your limits."

Ulaz: "Don't worry about me."

Thace: "I know you too well for that. I love you too much for that."

Ulaz wakes up in the morning, earlier than Thace does. He takes off the bandage to change it and it’s completely healed. 

**Chapter 11:** They come across an odd pocket in space where Ulaz says Shiro is. Slav says the anomaly is too big to be a gravity generator—it’s the size of a solar system. They see some kind of gate opening and go inside. Ulaz’s signal isn’t working anymore, because they’re already in range of what’s as precise as he can detect. But Allura detects Altean energy on one of the planets and gets really excited, so they land there. One of the people who greets them there is Ulaz’s Altean father, Errel. He recognizes Ulaz immediately, even though he hasn’t seen him since he was a baby (those markings on his head are very distinctive). They are on a planet inhabited entirely by Alteans, which I never named, so for the sake of this outline it’s called New Altea.

 **Chapter 12:** Scene change to a nice little house or something. Errel explains the New Altea backstory to the whole team. New Altea was created by rebels against Alfor’s government, which is why Allura didn’t know about them. They wanted him to cut ties with Zarkon as soon as the dangerous comet landed on Daibazaal, but instead Alfor helped with experiments on the rift and created Voltron. So the ancestors of the New Alteans—many of them sacred Alteans with magic powers, who believed that the rift shouldn’t be tampered with—said nope, we out. They fled to a new solar system and built a magical barrier around the whole thing. They watched as Daibazaal was destroyed, and then Altea, and their attitude was basically “suckers, we tried to warn you.” So New Altea is surrounded by a forcefield that blocks out Altean energy. That's why they can't wormhole, it interfered with Ulaz's signal, and their powers don't work on the planet. Errel explains that this is why only Ulaz’s powers got through the barrier, not Allura’s: it blocks all full-Altean energy, but since Ulaz is half, his works. (foreshadowing because Lotor is also half Altean and that’s how he detected it.) The descendants of the rebels aren't elated to meet Alfor's daughter and Voltron, the thing their ancestors protested against the creation of in the first place. Allura is very pissed when she finds out there has been a whole society of Alteans this whole time that has never tried to fight against Zarkon’s reign. Basically reacts the way she did in s3e4. She storms out, along with whoever else is in the room besides Ulaz and Thace, trying to comfort her. 

**Chapter 13:** Errel explains his past to Ulaz and Thace. 

Errel’s backstory is that he left New Altea because he wanted to explore, because New Altean society is stifling. He used shapeshifting to disguise himself as a Galra, fell in love with Ulaz’s Galra mother (her name is Mashek) on Rekys, but then was investigated by Galra officials and had to leave shortly after Ulaz was born. Ulaz should be thinking about his mother too while he’s talking to Errel. Errel left the ship that Ulaz uses in chapter 1 for his son to inherit, and it was disguised as a Galra ship so no one ever investigated that. Also, he has an opportunity to show Thace baby pictures of Ulaz, before he had those awful eyebags. XD

Allura and co. return, having found Shiro. Ulaz greets Shiro with a hug, but then Shiro tells him there’s no time to explain anything because Lotor is attacking New Altea with a Galra fleet. I don’t know what Lotor’s plan is. They already tried to form Voltron but their lions aren’t working. Errel is sure that Voltron doesn’t work because because of the barrier, and that Lotor was able to find New Altea when Haggar couldn’t because he’s also half Galra, half Altean. They decide that they have to battle on foot. Allura asks the Alteans to fight with them with a motivational speech similar to the one she gave to the Balmerans, but with some overtones of “you must stand and fight, or else you’re a disgrace to the Altean race I knew if you run away like cowards again.” 

Why Shiro was on New Altea: The Black Lion teleported him there, because it knew somehow that it was safe. They kept him there, because he's a paladin of Voltron and they are anti-Voltron. They treated him wonderfully well, he wasn't held captive, but they also conveniently ignored his requests to help him contact his friends, and since he just teleported there with no ship, he has no way of leaving the planet.

Also, it wasn’t going to be in the story, but maybe as a separate fic. While they’re preparing for battle, Kolivan and Antok have their first kiss. Antok is the one who goes for it, and Kolivan feels like he has to lie down for an hour. 

**Chapter 14:** There’s a big dramatic battle, and Thace gets injured (large slash across the chest) while trying to protect Keith. Keith and Thace vs. Lotor himself? Not sure what’s going on with the rest of the paladins. Ulaz wants to be able to use magic to protect him but he still can’t. Lotor escapes. Ulaz sends Keith ahead to run to the castle and get help. Either the battle ends or he manages to get Thace to a safe place and we have a parallel of chapter 3, where Ulaz thinks Thace is dead, but it doesn’t last a whole chapter. He’s running to get Thace to safety, carrying Thace in his arms, and we get Thace’s Dramatic Last Words. “Ulaz, I love you… Take care of Keith for me,” while coughing up blood. Ulaz says, “No, don’t say that, I’m not letting you go,” etc, and as soon as Thace’s eyes close, he says “I love you” back. His healing powers awaken and he heals Thace, but he doesn’t have enough energy for it so he passes out. 

**Chapter 15:** Ulaz wakes up in bed with Thace. Thace explains that he was briefly in the healing pod to fine tune Ulaz’s clumsy accidental healing, but he was mostly fixed up already, so it only took a few vargas. Thace also explains that Ulaz’s healing powers are the reason why he has an allergic reaction to healing pods, which they found out by briefly putting him in one while he was unconscious. Alteans with healing magic were the basis for healing pods, so they’re allergic because it conflicts with their body’s natural healing, causing pain and panic attacks. So while most Alteans used them for just about anything, including exhaustion, healers should only use them for life-threatening illness or physical injury, anything else their magic can take care of with a little rest. Ulaz wasn’t physically injured, just quintessence drained, so he just needs bed rest and to be close to Thace, since Thace can replenish Ulaz’s quintessence. Coran told Thace to stay with Ulaz, and he gladly provides this, of course. (all this could also go in a scene where Thace and Coran are talking, or where Thace is recounting it to Ulaz) They say something about how they’re always fighting to not be the one left behind. Ulaz apologizes for leaving Thace with an ugly scar across his chest, but Thace says he likes it. It’s really pretty actually, shimmering with the gold color of Ulaz’s magic. And then this exchange happens.

Thace: “It’s like a bonding mark. You know, I should give you one, too.” 

Ulaz: “Was that you proposing?”

Thace: “It can be if you want it to be.”

Ulaz couldn’t believe Thace was being this smooth. “Well then, this is me saying yes. If you want it to be.” 

(Note on bonding marks: I headcanon that Galra bite their mates and then rub the bite with an ink like a tattoo, and when it scars, that is the traditional Galra bonding mark. Scarification with blades, or even an existing wound like in Thace’s case, can also be used.)

They can finally go home to the Blade base and get married, and live happily ever after, as much as they can while still being in the middle of a war.


End file.
